I do have the Apple TV+ subscription thanks to getting a new iPhone last fall, but I’m really underwhelmed by what it offers. Admittedly, I’m a picky TV viewer but the series (all five of them?!) Apple offers are quite uninspired. I think the fact that they offer no free movies, even such a dubious selection which Netflix and HBO offers in Europe, further hampers its appeal. There’s no chance I’ll renew following my first free year.

Signed up for the free year. Watched a couple episodes of Ghostwriter with the kids, but we all quickly forgot about it. Little interest in the adult shows. I haven’t even tried any of them. The plan at this point is to cancel at the end of the free year. I’ll consider keeping it if I decide to buy a new device and Apple decides to continue offering free yearly subscriptions with those purchases. Just to see if they come out with anything that catches my interest. I don’t see the value in $5/month for a service I don’t use. I’d like to see Apple change my mind between now and the end of the free year.

"With iPhones and iPads built to hit a two-year planned obsolescence, the average user upgrades every 2.8 years. "

I think you're confusing iPhones with Android phones. Perhaps you're just anti-iPhone, click-baiting, or trying to be dramatic? Otherwise, iPhone may not be perfect, but where the heck do you get a 2 year planned obsolescence?

iPhones get solid support for 5 years and new iOS releases have only 1-2 features that dont work on all devices. I expect far more from Ars Technica than such comments.

"With iPhones and iPads built to hit a two-year planned obsolescence, the average user upgrades every 2.8 years. "

I think you're confusing iPhones with Android phones. Perhaps you're just anti-iPhone or trying to be dramatic? Otherwise, iPhone may not be perfect, but where the heck do you get a 2 year planned obsolescence?

iPhones get solid support for 5 years and new iOS releases have only 1-2 features that dont work on all devices.

Saying that Little America is going to flop because NBC is, five months from now, going to release their own streaming service seems like a bit of a stretch at best. Honestly, this piece reads like the author decided on its conclusion first and then jammed every round peg into every square hole to make things fit.

What the hell, this was one the shadiest articles I read on the otherwise great Ars Technica.

What bit of pathetic shade was this?

"With iPhones and iPads built to hit a two-year planned obsolescence, the average user upgrades every 2.8 years."

This "planned obsolescence" is based on what, exactly? Please tell me, as I'm currently using a 2016 SE with the latest software, and next year will still be using the latest software, while getting a new battery with warranty service from the OEM, without any hassle or waste of time, and will still have new OS versions and/or security updates for a few more years. What competing devices offer something comparable?

Apple TV+ doesn't seem great, but it's also just one of the lesser relevant services of the most successful public traded company of the planet that's mostly product driven. All of your potentially legitimate criticisms of Apple TV+ are buried on the pathetic, ignorant "planned obsolescence" shade. Let's even ignore the competitors.

In fact your shade is so out of touch with reality that one has to question who the fuck are you to be writing for this otherwise informed publication. Ars has to address this. It's unacceptable.

"With iPhones and iPads built to hit a two-year planned obsolescence…"

So the motivation for this entire article was Apple Derangement Syndrome? This is the sort of unserious clickbait nonsense Ars is suppose to stay above. Go write for Engadget or Gizmodo if this is the shit you're going to shovel.

"With iPhones and iPads built to hit a two-year planned obsolescence, the average user upgrades every 2.8 years. "

I think you're confusing iPhones with Android phones. Perhaps you're just anti-iPhone or trying to be dramatic? Otherwise, iPhone may not be perfect, but where the heck do you get a 2 year planned obsolescence?

iPhones get solid support for 5 years and new iOS releases have only 1-2 features that dont work on all devices.

I heard they slow down your old phones? Do they still do that?

They clock down the device's SoC when the battery can't output the necessary current to feed the SoC. It's up to the user to keep such feature active. Not doing so can result in an unexpected shut down, as it happens to a % of smartphones. It isn't brand dependent.

It only ever impacts defective or warn out batteries. And you can have a 5 year old iPhone and Apple will happily replace the battery with a new one + warranty. So they are best in class by a huge margin as far as support and fighting against planned obsolescence. Also, your 5 year old iPhone will be running the latest software and get a few more years of security updates.

The shade in this article is pathetic and uninformed, just like a user that frequents these comment sections still coming up with the "apple slows down" shit.

iPhones have by far the most potent SoC on the market, so they also have a lot of headroom there to manage.

Anyway all of this affected more smaller smartphones with smaller batteries, because they had to feed the same SoC as the big boys, but the maximum current output of smaller batteries was always closer to the necessary current to feed the SoC, and smaller batteries most of the time mean more frequent charging, quicker cycles, reduced life. But we all know that already.

I signed up because I needed to before 3 months passed after the purchase that gave me 1 free year. I haven't watched anything yet (in nearly a month); the launch titles were really uninspiring.

However, I do plan on giving Little America a try, and if I like that I should try Dickinson (sometimes I like quirky). But man, they really needed to coming storming out of the gate and they did the exact opposite. I can't imagine paying $5/month for it right now.

I don't get your comparison to Peacock, though. "Free with ads" is not free as far as I'm concerned. Ads equals "will not watch" to me.

I've been wanting to like Apple TV+, but like others here it's been tough getting into the shows. I liked For All Mankind... sort of.

The first couple episodes really pulled me in, but just like so many other shows (on all the platforms) it quickly turned into melodramatic soap-opera schlock. It feels like the quantity vs. quality arms race is out of control at this point.

"With iPhones and iPads built to hit a two-year planned obsolescence, the average user upgrades every 2.8 years. "

I think you're confusing iPhones with Android phones. Perhaps you're just anti-iPhone or trying to be dramatic? Otherwise, iPhone may not be perfect, but where the heck do you get a 2 year planned obsolescence?

iPhones get solid support for 5 years and new iOS releases have only 1-2 features that dont work on all devices.

Yeah, it's android that only got 2 years of update from big brands (Samsung, etc).

The only brand that was updating to more than 2 years was xiaomi but they stopped that on mid 2019.

If Apple is going to be giving out one year free trial with hardware purchase indefinitely (instead of initial limited time offer) then it is similar to Amazon Prime Video, the number of subscribers doesn't really mean much. Only paid subscribers / actual viewership are true indicators of popularity, but I doubt Apple will disclose that info.

I have a free year from the iPhone 11 pro, but the only thing connected to my TV that does Apple TV + is the built in Roku and I've found the streaming quality to be shit compared to the other services. I get these weird artifacts I haven't seen since I dumped cable, where the picture kind of freezes and the people and next scene are kind of textured with the previous scene for a few seconds.

In addition to Apple entering a business in which it has zero expertise (driverless cars?), Apple is also terribly late to the game, not early. The time for Apple to get into streaming content was 5 years ago, not 5 months ago. Even then, Apple should have bought an established player, such as Hulu or HBO (both were up for grabs at one point). Then Apple might have become a player. Now, Apple TV is just kind of sad, an also-ran in an over-crowded field.

The most ambitious project, See, was a masturbatory disaster, while the star-studded Morning Show was barely mediocre

That’s a bit of a pessimistic take. I wouldn’t call see a masterpiece, but it’s a lot better than the reviews, and anecdotally I know at least one person who paid for a subscription (not a free trial) just to get the Morning Show and doesn’t regret it.

Quote:

With iPhones and iPads built to hit a two-year planned obsolescence

Not sure if this is ignorance or trolling. iPads last essentially forever which is why their sales are slow. As for iPhones, they have support from Apple for 5+ years now. As for users upgrading after 2.8 years, those are the original users who hand them down or sell them for significant amounts of money because, far from being obsolete, there is still demand for them. Hell, Apple sells 3 year old designs NEW and lots of people pay lots of money for them. My goodness this is a bad take.

I want to say, "Hopefully there is some market consolidation", but know that will be terrible as well. In a wonderful bit of irony, streaming services have become as bad as bundled cable for the opposite reason. You could spend over $200 per month on streaming services you really do not need and still be left without an option to receive some of the desirable stations that can only be found on bundled cable services.

Consolidation will happen, it happens in every industry and winners buy almost winners and losers get bought out before they go bankrupt. Then the price hikes will start and streaming will be just as painful as bundled cable. It happens because business controls regulatory bodies, or lobbies until they are de-funded and toothless shells, and the voters are not paying attention.

The most ambitious project, See, was a masturbatory disaster, while the star-studded Morning Show was barely mediocre

That’s a bit of a pessimistic take. I wouldn’t call see a masterpiece, but it’s a lot better than the reviews, and anecdotally I know at least one person who paid for a subscription (not a free trial) just to get the Morning Show and doesn’t regret it.

That was me. I paid for a subscription (no recent device purchases) just for The Morning Show, and I wasn’t disappointed. I think it’s some of the best writing on TV this year. Can’t wait for Season 2!

What?Personally, I only consider these devices “obsolete” if they can’t run the latest OS. And my 4+ year old iPhone 6s plus is still going strong (it’d still be my daily driver if I didn’t get a good deal on an XR).

And my iPad Air 2 is even older, but I see absolutely no compelling reason to “upgrade” as it does everything I want of it.

So Apple TV+ is doing just fine for a debut year. It's not like everything HBO/Showtime/Netflix produce is quality TV.

See is not good.The men are surprisingly good on TMS. Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell and Steve Carell put in some amazingly good performances. Jennifer Aniston is good. Witherspoon does her best to make every scene mediocre.For All Man Kind is good fun. At times it manages to be inspirational. During other times it's a little corny.

And while I enjoyed The Mandalorian, let's not all pretend it was the pinnacle of sci-fi television. There was some definite paint by numbers heroism and character development. A baby makes a mercenary develop a conscious and he saves a village full of defenseless farmers. If this weren't live action Star Wars, the actual story telling would be acceptable at best.

Apple TV+, will get better with time. Apple has the money to spend decades on this vanity project if they so desire. None of the other big players have apparently limitless iPhone money they get to spend. Apple's determined to buy their way in. I would not bet against them.

In addition to Apple entering a business in which it has zero expertise (driverless cars?), Apple is also terribly late to the game, not early. The time for Apple to get into streaming content was 5 years ago, not 5 months ago. Even then, Apple should have bought an established player, such as Hulu or HBO (both were up for grabs at one point). Then Apple might have become a player. Now, Apple TV is just kind of sad, an also-ran in an over-crowded field.

So Apple is generally always later to the game than other players. For example they didn't invent smartphones or tablets - they entered a market that had existing players that made devices that just weren't any good and they crushed that market because Apple's devices were really good. Same thing with the iPod. There were a lot of existing devices and they almost universally sucked. Apple then crushed it. This has been their model. Take hardware that already exists, mostly perfect it and then win.

They must have thought they were doing that with Apple TV+ but they forgot the crush it part and just shipped "meh".

In addition to Apple entering a business in which it has zero expertise (driverless cars?), Apple is also terribly late to the game, not early. The time for Apple to get into streaming content was 5 years ago, not 5 months ago. Even then, Apple should have bought an established player, such as Hulu or HBO (both were up for grabs at one point). Then Apple might have become a player. Now, Apple TV is just kind of sad, an also-ran in an over-crowded field.

So Apple is generally always later to the game than other players. For example they didn't invent smartphones or tablets - they entered a market that had existing players that made devices that just weren't any good and they crushed that market because Apple's devices were really good. Same thing with the iPod. There were a lot of existing devices and they almost universally sucked. Apple then crushed it. This has been their model. Take hardware that already exists, mostly perfect it and then win.

They must have thought they were doing that with Apple TV+ but they forgot the crush it part and just shipped "meh".

It's also predicated on all of Apple's competitors having bad products, which just isn't true for streaming services.

What?Personally, I only consider these devices “obsolete” if they can’t run the latest OS. And my 4+ year old iPhone 6s plus is still going strong (it’d still be my daily driver if I didn’t get a good deal on an XR).

And my iPad Air 2 is even older, but I see absolutely no compelling reason to “upgrade” as it does everything I want of it.

I would really like to agree to your statement. But my expereince is just the opposite.

Using an iPhone 6s as a main device is no fun at all. And yes, apple is releasing OS updates that have the same version number as the ones for my new iPhone, but it is still not getting close. I think that apple wants to send with each OS update the message "Don't use it anymore. It is not getting better. Buy a new device." Not even MS produces updates like that.

The same is true for my iPad mini. Yes, it technically still works, and it got the "latest" OS, but using it, is just no fun anymore.

I wish it were different. I wish I would have been right, when I explained my wife, that with spending so much for an apple device, we would not spend it every other year as with android.

Saying that Little America is going to flop because NBC is, five months from now, going to release their own streaming service seems like a bit of a stretch at best. Honestly, this piece reads like the author decided on its conclusion first and then jammed every round peg into every square hole to make things fit.

Yeah, i'm no Apple fan, and even I thought that this was a hit-piece unworthy of ARS. It is interesting that the author's name isn't clickable nor is there an "about" footer section. From a brief Google search, the author also appears to write for Elite Daily (whomever they are). I didn't feel like giving them any clicks, so I don't know the quality of the site.